Salon.com has compiled a review of the health and well-being of the Republican Party, state by state: The following list examines the trends in each of the 50 states over the past three election cycles, assessing demographic shifts, voting patterns, rising and falling political stars and organizational strengths and weaknesses. The picture it paints is not pretty, but it is not hopeless either. We have (roughly) ordered the list by the relative love that each state has for its Grand Old Party. While...

This is the kind of corporate transaction that could negatively impact the American brand name. Genentech is an amazing story and an amazing company, but I would like it to stay an amazing American-owned company. I’m happy for the business that they have such an offer, but here we are in an economic crisis, complaining about outsourcing jobs and manufacturing, as well as importing more than we export, and still, there’s the Genentech sale. One reason this hits me so hard is that I actually remember...

I’ve been getting word of the announcement that President Obama would create the White House Council on Women and Girls today since yesterday afternoon, so it’s almost a bit anti-climactic.  However, don’t let my blasé it takes a lot to impress me attitude dissuade you from recognizing what a big deal this actually is. You can read the full announcement from the White House after the jump here. While I hear and fully expect that nearly all women’s groups will happy about council’s creation,...

And hey, I live in the heart of it all – my congressional district’s well-being index (I’m in Ohio’s 11th, Marcia Fudge is my rep, replacing the late Stephanie Tubbs Jones) is 426 out of 435 -no wonder I feel so…not well. According to the State and Congressional District Resource for Well-Being, ”a product of the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index,” my state, Ohio ranks 47th most “well” state (meaning, not very well at all) out of 50. The NYT...

Major hat-tip to RHReality Check. From AFP: US President Barack Obama announced Friday the creation of a new foreign policy position designed to tackle global women’s issues. Obama named Melanne Verveer, an aide in former president Bill Clinton’s administration, as ambassador-at-large for international women’s issues. She will serve at the State Department under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Verveer will have to be approved by the Senate. More about her at Wikipedia and from...

Read it and shake your head – because, again, with this kind of thought (that advertisers will soon realize that no one clicks on Internet ads and will then come back to the newspapers and save them – no, really, that’s what’s being suggested) being proffered by the professional journalist atmosphere, they’re only tempting the fates as they scrunch the blinders tighter. Original story here, where they write a little blurb about the failing health of each of the ten. And the list...

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has selected Judge Morgan Christen to become an Alaska Supreme Court justice, the second woman ever named to that bench. From the Alaska Daily News (read the entire article, there’s a lot of detail in it): Gov. Sarah Palin on Wednesday picked an Anchorage judge to fill the latest vacancy on the Alaska Supreme Court despite efforts by a conservative Christian group to convince her to do otherwise. … “Alaska’s Supreme Court bears the awesome responsibility...

The Assistant Majority Whip for the West Virginia House of Delegates, Jeff Eldridge (D-Lincoln), is simultaneously seeking to legalize “the emerging full-contact – and often bloody – sport of mixed martial arts” while also pushing to make it “unlawful to sell Barbie and similar dolls ‘that promote or influence girls to place an undue importance on physical beauty to the detriment of their intellectual and emotional development.’” The background: From...

If that doesn’t express the internal and external conflicts with which conservatives and Republicans are struggling, I don’t know what does. Just check out BlogNetNews.com Rightysphere results for “The Messiah” versus A Google search on “apologize Limbaugh.” Complete, total, utter, abject absence of looking in the mirror. (I know – so many opportunities to make jokes about what they’d see re: Limbaugh’s image at CPAC.) Read the rest of the post at Writes Like She Talks.

From JTA: The Obama administration has decided to boycott the so-called Durban II conference out of concerns for anti-Semitism. Multiple sources on a conference call with the White House on Friday told JTA that the Obama administration had opted not to attend any further preparatory meetings ahead of the planned U.N. conference against racism in Geneva in April. The conference reprises the 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa that devolved into an anti-Jewish free-for-all. Canada and Israel have...

This morning, I posted about how, yesterday, Rush Limbaugh called for a women’s summit because of the uniquely high gender gap reported by Public Policy Polling. Limbaugh wanted to find out, through a summit: what it is I must do to close the gender gap — or, if not what it is I must do to close the gender gap, what it is I’ve done that has caused the gender gap; assuming the gender gap is true and that the poll is true. So, this evening, I forced myself to read the entire transcript that...

First, here’s the information from Public Policy Polling. In addition to the gender gap discussed below, the poll indicates that few people think Rush Limbaugh should have much influence: Even if voters are pretty split on whether they like Limbaugh or not, there’s more of a consensus on how much sway they think he should hold in American politics, which is not much. Only 23% of respondents said Limbaugh should have ‘a lot’ of influence and the most common answer, given by 42% of respondents,...

If you like live, you will love tonight’s live-blog of the Presidential Address to Congress. Please go to this post at my blog, Writes Like She Talks, to participate.  Everyone is welcome and there are already dozens of people in the room, several of whom have been conversing for 30-40 minutes already.

Strange long path but now confirmed by the U.S. Senate.  Congratulations. It was not unanimous but 80-17. Here’s more from NPR.

Am I the only one who is amazed at how, only six months ago, John McCain and Sarah Palin were the image of the Republican Party and wanted to be and were supported by their party to be the image of the White House and now, Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele and Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal are the image? Frankly, the choice of Steele as chair and Jindal as the person to deliver the GOP response to President Obama’s speech this evening, could not be more emblematic of just...

I’ve had the idea for a post about this subject in my head since yesterday morning, but the New York Times release of this NYT/CBS poll about support for President Obama and disdain for Republican rejectionism has made push come to shove and I really need to write it now. First, from the poll (the full pdf is here): Americans are under no illusions that the country’s problems will be resolved quickly, but the poll suggested they would be particularly patient when it comes to the economy,...

From JTA: Israeli President Shimon Peres invited Benjamin Netanyahu to form the next government. After hearing from Peres Friday, Netanyahu, who leads the Likud Party, immediately invited Tzipi Livni, the leader of the Kadima Party, and Ehud Barak, the leader of the Labor Party, to form a national unity government. Such a government would help Netanyahu hew to a centrist foreign policy and sustain peace negotiations with the Palestinians and the Syrians. Barak and Livni have said they favor going...

And I have it officially and had it but, unlike the MSM that could not restrain itself, I abided by the rules.  Oh those rascally traditional journalists with all their fancy expensive filters. Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Brunner – come on down as the first announced Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Republican George Voinovich. And Toto too, now as Governor Ted Strickland’s second in charge, Lee Fisher, will announce tonight. Here’s Brunner’s...

A pattern seems to be emerging.  From The Fix’s line on U.S. Senate races: 1. New Hampshire (R): After much sturm und drang over the past week, we are left with one indisputable fact: the New Hampshire Senate seat is open in 2010. Rep. Paul Hodes is already in the race for Democrats and he as well as national Democrats are hoping that Rep. Carol Shea Porter, who retains a significant grassroots following in the state, decides against a primary challenge. Former Sen. John Sununu is regarded as...

Finally, good news, as reported in The Nation: The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where the [nomination of California Congresswoman Hilda] Solis had been stalled, voted overwhelmingly on Wednesday evening to recommend confirmation of the congresswoman. Solis, a labor ally who whose confirmation process was delayed by conservative Republicans who objected to her union ties and progressive politics, got the committee O.K. on a voice vote. Only two Republican members of the...

I’ve got permission to do a live-blog of a call this afternoon described as follows: On Wednesday, February 11, at 4:00 p.m. ET Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist for the Vice President, will discuss the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan on a press conference call with progressive media and bloggers.  Bernstein will discuss the impacts of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan and answer questions. I’ll be on the call.  If you’re interested, please stop by here to follow...

You have got to be kidding me: Senate Democratic leadership has announced who will be serving on the conference committee to iron out differences in the House and Senate versions of the stimulus bill. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii Finance Committee Ranking Member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Thad Cochran, R-Miss. Both Finance and Appropriations were heavily...

UPDATE: 2/12/09: Here’s the video of Courtney Martin on O’Reilly’s show. He tells her that if she can show that she called out sexism against Sarah Palin, he’ll apologize.  Here is one instance of when Martin did that (O’Reilly didn’t do his homework before making the bet) and this instance is of Martin calling out sexism levied against Palin by…O’Reilly.  Be prepared for O’Reilly to say he wasn’t being sexist enough to be called out for...

These can change – I’ve seen it, it happens. But this is the most current spread for now. What I don’t get is: Livni had the most last time too – but couldn’t form the coalition and that’s what got us to today. So, now what? According to Jameel: 10:27 PM What happens next: [that's 3:27EST] 1. Final Results to be announced by 6 AM [11pmEST] 2. President Shimon Peres will then go from party to party and ask if they will form a government with the leader of the...

Chris Baker might come to owe me dinner, because wisely I didn’t bet that Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher will not run against each other in a Democratic primary to be the party’s nominee to fill retiring U.S. Senator George Voinovich’s seat. I only wagered that Brunner and Ohio congressman, Tim Ryan, wouldn’t be facing off. Still, I didn’t think the Brunner-Fisher scenario was as likely to materialize as it now seems to be. First,...